Got Bangkok

Tarad Rodfi (Train market)
Open Daily 17:00 – 24:00 (but I HIGHLY suggest going on Thursday-Sunday)
Tel: +66 (0)92 713 5599
Address: Esplanade, 99 Ratchadaphisek Rd Din Daeng, Bangkok 10400, Thailand. (MRT Thailand Cultural Center) The market is directly behind Esplanade shopping mall.

Tarad Rodfi (train market) opened a new branch in Ratchada behind Esplanade. They have shops open every night but the main nights where all the shops, bars, food stalls are open are from Thursday til Sunday night until about 2-3am.

The pictures above are of the bar/pubs area. As you can see it gets full of Thai locals going out for some cold beers in a really chill environment. There are about 10-15 little bars to choose from. Some have beer towers, others just serve the big bottles of Singha, Heineken, Leo beers.

Thai Friendly
Members Count: approx 400,000
www.thaifriendly.com
Thai Friendly is my personal favorite of all Thai dating websites. It has a really nice user interface and brings you directly to the content right after registering an account. When browsing profiles it shows a lot of info without even having to click yet, things like: username, age, city from, new members, etc. You can also search members with many different filters, like: sex, age, city, education, online or not, distance from cities, height, weight, and more. Some member features include unlimited picture uploads, cam snaps, favorites, show interests.

Free members can only send 1 message every ten minutes. This website is great, and the service is fast and wonderful, so sure this is a downfall for free members, but think about it, if you are single and searching for a significant other, isn’t it worth it to just pay the small membership fee? Price is $24.95 per month or $99.95 ($8.33/month) per year. All major credit cards and Paypal are accepted. Join Thai Friendly Free here.

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Thai Cupid (formerly ThaiLoveLinks)
Members Count: approx 900,000
www.thaicupid.com
Thai Cupid (aka Thai Love Links) was the first Thailand dating website (to my knowledge). So it surely has a ton of members. Their site claims to have over 1 million members! It is powered by a large network of dating sites called “Cupid Media”.

You can join for free and browse profiles, but in order to begin interacting with people you must upgrade your account to the paid account. By upgrading from free to paid account you gain access to contact as many people as you want, by email, instant message, and chat. You can exchange personal contact details with members, your profile will be ranked higher than free members profiles, and many more.

Thai Love Links paid memberships range from 800-900 baht per month (gold and platinum) to 267-300 baht per month if paid per year. All major credit cards and Paypal are accepted. Join ThaiCupid Free here.

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Thai Love Lines
Members Count: N/A
www.thailovelines.com
Thai Love Lines is a little less popular than the 2 dating sites above but it’s still nice to check in to see what they have to offer. Their registration process is a bit too in-depth, it takes a while, there are minimum text amounts you must fill in your profile, and must choose options in EVERY category before moving on to the next steps of registration. The people are generally older crowd than Thailovelinks & Thaifriendly. I don’t really like the browsing experience here because the main profile thumbnail pictures are really small and the user home area is pretty cluttered too.

Price to join TLL is $19.99 per month or $119.99 per year. All major credit cards and Paypal are accepted. Alternative payment methods are: you can do Thai to Thai bank transfers, pay via Western Union, and even pay by cash (registered post only). Join ThaiLoveLines Free here.

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Thai Love Web
Members Count: 10,000
www.thailoveweb.com
Thai Love Web full review is coming soon, with pricing information, member count, and much more reviews and information about ThaiLoveWeb.com

After a mini-interview with the owner, he says:
After 3 months we have 10,000 members, 5000 active. Our website is free to use up to 10 free messages a day, $27 for 3 months or $57 per your and VIP program is $97 a year which also gives you VIP access to livingthai.org due to our partnership with that site.

Thai Love Web seems like a very nice way for thai girls to meet farang guys, and vice versus, so if you’re visiting Thailand for vacation or living in Thailand, checkout ThaiLoveWeb if you would like to meet a companion. Join ThaiLoveWeb Free here.

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Farang Date
Members Count: N/A
www.farangdate.com
Farang Date full review is coming soon, with pricing information, member count, and much more reviews and information about FarangDate.com

Farang Date is a 100% free dating site. They claim to have over 100,000 members now and you can do all of this without a single payment: create profile, browse profiles, wink & add favorites, send messages and live chats, receive updates to your email. They do have upgrade to premium member which starts at $4 per month.

Farang Date is yet another way for you to meet your companion here in Thailand. Join FarangDate Free here.

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Good Thai Girl
Members Count: N/A
www.goodthaigirl.com
Good Thai Girl probably has the oldest aged Thai girls of all the Thai dating sites that I reviewed. Actually the site is pretty old too, it’s been around since 2006. The layout of the site is a bit old style, really “old school” type of dating site. One really big thing I didn’t like about Good Thai Girl is that once you join you are automatically a “Silver member”, and Silver members are not allowed to read messages, you MUST ugrade to Gold or Platinum memberships in order to read your messages.

Price to join the Good Thai Girl Gold membership is $19.98 per month, $29.98 per 3 months, or $34.98 for 6 months. If you’d like to join the Platinum membership it’s $22.48 per month, $32.48 per 3 months, $37.48 per 6 months, or $42.48 per year. Visa & Mastercard are accepted, along with Paypal and Google Checkout, You can also pay via mogapay or AIS cash card billing. Join GoodThaiGirl Free here.

If you would like to see other Thai dating websites reviewed please email me.

For those of you that could not make it to Queen Sirikit Convention center last week for the Thailand Pet Expo 2013, here are some pictures from the wonderful event.

As you can see, there were tons of cuddly creatures there for adoption, to play with, and even some dog shows and talent shows!

Check it out next year!

Few nights ago I went into a Family Mart to buy Heineken and they were out of stock. So I decided to try this Ploy Siam beer. It is a very strong beer, at about 8% and has a taste that resembles wine. I would have to say that I did NOT like it, but it is a strong and cheap Thai beer, so it does serve it’s purpose at some times here in Thailand. 🙂

Any else tried this Thai beer, Ploy Siam, before?

His majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej is usually the person on the back of the 100 baht bills circulating in Thailand, but recently I came across another bill, that has his son, the current Crown Prince of Thailand, Vajiralongkorn on the back of 100 baht bill. Ever since then, I’ve been checking every 100 baht bill that I come into possession with and cannot find another with Vajiralongkorn on it, except the 1 here in the pics.

After searching the net, I found this:

“The bank will also issue 10 million commemorative banknotes with a face value of 100 baht to celebrate HRH Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn’s 5th cycle, or 60th birthday, on July 28 and circulate them in the financial system.

The front of the special edition 100-baht banknote will be identical to those currently in circulation.

The back, however, will bear a portrait of the Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn in full regalia and an illustration depicting the Crown Prince’s investiture.”

The Central bank also issued commemorative 80-baht banknotes to represent the 80th birthday of Her Majesty the Queen.

Sawatdee pee mai krapppppppp

Pics from RCA, Silom and Kao San Road coming soon!

Thai government and people are furious over this recent Saturday Night Live skit about Rosetta Stone Thai. After watching this YouTube video you can see why.

My personal opinion, I did laugh and think it was a pretty funny and well-played skit, but at the same time I could totally understand why the people of Thai would be furious, disappointed, and angry about it. But, I was also born and raised with freedom of speech, so I think the video should be left alone, but can’t blame the Thai government for attempting to get the video removed.

I was told by my Esplanade customer service rep that Sukhumvit 23 and Siam Paragon California Wow’s will stay open. So yesterday, Sunday July 22nd I went to Suk23 location and it’s closed with a sign that says:

“Dear Members, please be inform that building electrician found that our instigated circuit has a problem and it will be fixed by Monday, The club is closure on Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd July 2012 and will operate as normal on Monday 23rd July 2012. Sorry for your inconvenience.”

So today, Monday July 23rd I go there expecting a great long workout, and it’s STILL not open 🙁

Sign this weekend, about closing for the weekend

Today, Monday, still not open as the sign says they would be 🙁

This is really horrible, I seen so many other disappointed California Wow members going up and reading the sign, frustrated and disappointed. I really wish Caliwow can at least inform it’s members properly, open some kind of solid line of communication. Even their own employees were there reporting to work to see that it’s not open today!

EDIT: California Wow at Esplanade (Ratchada branch) is now open 🙂

Anymore info about California Wow and it’s problems, opinions, or anything please let me know by contacting me

Bangkok is quite fortunate when it comes to food deliver services. We’ve been blessed with 4 solid Bangkok delivery service companies (that I know of). For those of you who use the 4 Bangkok food delivery services, I’d like to get everyone’s feedback and experiences dealing with the 4 popular sites.

1. Food By Phone
Food By Phone – This was the first delivery service I was introduced to back in 2007, but it was founded in 1998 by Marc Hagelauer and Rungrudee Suwannake. I like a lot of the restaurants they have here, also they have a top 50 items ordered (the top 3 being 1. Hummus from Beirut, 2. Shawarma Chicken Sandwich from Beirut, 3. Tabuleh from Beirut), safe to assume they have a huge customer base of Beirut Lebanese Restaurant lovers! To be totally honest though, the mark-up prices combined with the delivery fee at Food By Phone makes them quite overpriced compared to the other food delivery services I know of.


2. Chefs XP
Chefs XP – Chefs XP is what I normally use when ordering food online in Bangkok. They advertise as usually having no mark-up pricing on their food items, and delivery fee is only 60 baht per restaurant, so usually Chefs XP is


3. Food Panda
Food Panda – Food Panda just opened in March this year 2012. I have no personal experience with Food Panda yet, but I will post my experiences soon as I plan to try them. I like their aim to have a food delivery service in every major city in Thailand eventually. I also like that you can search restaurants in your specific districts in Bangkok. Lets hope they are success!


3. Go Tasty
Go Tasty – GoTasty is the smart online food-delivery in Bangkok, Thailand. We offer a convenient, easy and reliable way to order a variety of food from one of our many restaurant alliances, delivered right to your doorstep! Currently, we are open for delivery in Bangna and Phra Khanong, Mon-Sat 10:00-21:00 hrs. See their Facebook page here.

Please post your experiences in the comments area or email them to me here.

I got an email last week, about something the people of Thailand, tourists, locals, residences, everyone should take part in, that is helping the animals effected by those horrible floods.

Here’s an exerpt from the email I received:

“The Bangkok floods have now disappeared and we hope for no reoccurrence this year. Thank you for your support during the floods. With your help thousands of animals were saved!

The cleanup work continues and Soi Dog continues to help dogs that were affected by the disaster.

An outstanding task remains from the floods; the rebuilding of the dog shelter at what became known as Dog Island. Dog Island had been a temporary refuge for hundreds of dogs displaced by the Bangkok floods. The dogs on Dog Island captured the worlds attention and became symbolic of all the animals affected by the flooding.

The area where Dog Island is located is called Putthamonthon (often called Buddha Monthon). Putthamonthon is a huge Buddhist Temple complex in the Nakhon Pathom province of Thailand, west of Bangkok. Putthamonthon is the center of Buddhism in Thailand.

Prior to the floods a woman named Khun Ruen operated the shelter at Putthamonthon relying on the generosity of the community to help feed and care for the dogs. Unfortunately the Putthamonthon shelter was almost completely destroyed by the floods and Khun Ruen’s dogs were moved to the temporary rescue centre at WFFT south of Bangkok. Pictured below is Khun Ruen visiting her dogs at the temporary facilities.

Soi Dog has committed to rebuild thePutthamonthon shelter and I am asking for your help today in doing so.

Khun Ruen spends 7 days a week selflessly caring for the dogs at Phuttamonthon. Will you help Khun Ruen to keep fulfilling her promise to the animals in her care? Please consider helping Khun Ruen by donating to the Phuttamonthon Shelter appeal today and help these now all but forgotten dogs.”

Please take a moment to watch this short video of the evacuation of Khun Ruen’s dogs during the flood crisis:

A few pictures of the dogs and Soi Dogs foundation

Please Donate Here